No More Essays! Rethinking What We Have Students Write in Our Courses

Wednesday, September 27th, 2017 • 3:30pm - 4:45pm

In this workshop, you will hear from faculty throughout the college about the writing assignments they give their students that elicit truly engaged and thoughtful work and that their students find challenging, rewarding, and fun. The purpose is to generate ideas about rethinking what and why we have students write in our courses. For example, instead of having students write “term papers” or “essays,” why not have them write short conference papers, book reviews, peer critiques, blogs, or other genres that you yourself write and that fit with your learning goals? We will first share with you what the research says about what students find meaningful and rewarding in their assignments. We will then share actual assignments from our courses that have worked well. Finally, we will wrap up with tips and discussion about revising or generating new writing assignments.